by grace through Faith

Tag: unmerited love

Hi, my dearest readers 🙂 first of all I apologise for the late post this week esp. for those who keep up. It has been one heck of a week I tell you and not exactly in the best of ways… so much have gone on, some of which I am still trying to make out what I’m supposed to learn or benefit from it because I’m all about everything working together for my good you know (Romans 8:28). When I do find out, and learn and understand, I promise to share when the time is right ;).

Although one thing got me through this week and it was a scripture God has been banging in my heart that “we love him because He first loved us” (I John 4:19). I was thinking emm I kind of know you love us God so what am I supposed to get from this? Truth is I really didn’t know how much God loved me.

Because I have had my doubts, asking questions such as- does God love me ALL the time??? At the points when I do really bad and mean things or wrong Him does he stop loving me??? The answer is He loved and still does love me even at my filthiest and this is same for everyone. You see my friends, God does not ever stop loving us- sinful or perfect because from the very beginning he loved us. What God wants is NOT for us to hide away from him thinking He’s one angry God, out there to get us anytime we fall short but He’s as loving as can be and ready to embrace us the minute we turn to him. So let’s approach his throne of grace boldly and continuously with sincere hearts and he will lovingly receive us EVERY TIME. So the times during the week that I fell short, I asked for mercy and tell myself He still Loves me whether I feel it or not… 🙂

[However, this is not an invitation to deliberately sin as God is not mocked, whatever you sow you reap 😉]

Hmmm I’m not sure where to start with this one but let’s get cracking shall we? :). Well for me I didn’t really ask myself that question for a long time seeing as I grew up going to church because both my parents have always been dedicated Christians. So being a bit more mature I began to realise that I was a Christian mostly because I didn’t want to go hell and a little because I also wanted to please my (very lovely) parents .

To be honest I thought that was a good enough reason for a long time until emmm… (I’m sure we can finish this sentence) yeah. That was not a good enough reason because it made the whole Christian Faith to me seem as if it’s something you cannot really enjoy being in. Like a chore which you had to do to get some sort of eternal blessings, whatever that means. Anyways I kept on in the “faith” but lived how I wanted to mostly and made sure to pray forgiveness every night before I sleep, to escape hell in case the next day was the end of the world (*laughs*).

So that went on for a while until I got to University, now this was a whole different ball game as I was on my own away from home so you can imagine the freedom. However, church had been so ingrained in me that it only felt natural to look for a church and get involved in to fulfil all righteousness (one of the best decisions I made btw).

Long story short, I was able to see God in a totally different light and understand this Christian faith is so much more than just trying to follow a set of rules in order to avoid hell or to please my parents. I was able to experience for myself and know that this God really just wanted me to get to know and love him for who he is and be called a Christian because I knew and fell in love with this person of Christ.

I really want to blurt out right now what happened but that’s what this whole blog is about. I suggest you start especially with the first post if you’re interested in knowing.

You may not have faith in yourself but have faith in the God who made you

If you have been following the Love Series, I’m sure you would have figured it out what you need to do before I even start ;). One thing I’ve learnt is sometimes when we give up probably on a certain project or developing a skill or improving a certain talent, or making certain commitments, we deny ourselves of once in a life time opportunities. We have been talking about loving ourselves first so that we would be able to understand what it means to showcase this kind of love to others.

If you are willing to not believe in yourself and the God who made you, it would be difficult to believe in others. I can go on and on about how much of a valuable person you are and why you should never give up on yourself but that will take a whole day so I’d rather you pick one thing today and this that God has not given up on you so why should you? Once you’re able to get that around your heart and head you are already showcasing love because people will look at your life and say I want to be like that and it would be easier to not give up or lose faith in people and ultimately God.

Remember we are talking about loving yourself first so you will be able to apply it to loving others. When I was learning about these series and I reached Jealousy, I asked God, now I can’t be Jealous of myself now can I? and God said yes but jealousy can result to self hatred (opp. Of Loving yourself). So I asked how? and God helped me to understand that;

When you’re resentful of someone’s advantages you do not allow yourself to benefit however possible from this person’s advantages. This could be through learning how the person came about their success or even sharing in the success if the person is close to you. With you having bitterness against someone in your mind can also be looked at as denying yourself of total happiness and peace of mind if we are being honest; and this is not loving yourself. I had to learn to the get to the point where I would tell myself that I love me too much to allow me get bitter or sad over someone’s blessings. Like it or not we all need happiness and peace in our hearts and if we don’t have that, it affects you first before anyone around you. So today I urge you love yourself and be happy with who you are and where you are in life. God made everyone uniquely and has unique purposes for everyone you inclusive! just trust God and remember that ALL things work together for the good of them that love God.

Love is kind therefore if I have love in me I should be kind to others; emm very true but the question is, am I kind to myself?

So I’m a gym kind of person I try to work out as much as I can get myself to despite the fact that I can be quite lazy lol but sometimes I work out so hard then maybe one time during the week I end up eating all the wrong foods which ends up making me feel like I’ve wasted all that time in the gym and to compensate I end up starving myself which itself also has a bad result anyway my point is I was not being kind to myself and my body depriving myself of good health and I needed to understand that in being patient with myself, I also have to be kind to myself, encouraging myself with the word of God acknowledging that I did not make myself but God made me because sometimes there won’t be anyone around to encourage you so you have to learn to do it yourself.

So many of us fall short in different ways but instead of torturing ourselves, we should pick ourselves up acknowledging that there’s a forgiving father willing to accept you once you ask for forgiveness and being kind to yourself means accepting his loving help! Remember it takes being kind to yourself accepting God’s helping hand that you’d be able to be in more a position of being kind to others because you understand how it feels both ways…

So I asked myself “am I really patient with myself” because you see sometimes I set goals, sometimes unrealistic goals and when I end up not achieving any of them, I beat myself up and may sometimes resort to putting myself down. Now don’t get me wrong sometimes it’s good to push yourself to be fruitful but when things don’t turn out the way you expect instead of resorting to self-hatred, you thank God that you’re not where you want to be yet but you are on your way. You see even Christ did not save the world in one day, He had to grow up, make his own mistakes, learned, endured alot of shame and despise I mean If I was Christ and knew the kind of Power I had at my beck and call I would have probably fast forwarded time and immediately be on the on the cross and die and rise and again but no he was very patient with himself, the people around him and especially with God’s timing (which can be long sometimes I must say :P) and we all know the result today- He is name above all names among many other blessings.

When you learn to be Patient with yourself it won’t be really hard to be patient with others because you can put yourself in their situation and have a bit of compassion on others. I believe God is even more patient with us now after he became human and lived like us because he now knows how it is really to be human.

Some, if not most of us have heard the saying “ Love thy neighbour as yourself” some may read this and think here we go, another person trying to tell how to treat other people nicely and be selfless, and so on… well im sure you’d be pleased to know that I’m not going that route today…instead let’s talk about you, me, us for a minute.

That quote is from the bible and I want to capitalise on the fact that it says you should love others as your YOURSELF. You see most of my life (not like I’ve lived dt long lol) I’ve been taught about how to love people because that’s what God wants and yeah sure enough that’s true but on very few occasions have I been taught to love myself and know that I can’t give what I don’t have.

(1 Corinthians 13 NLT) Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance etc.

Now first question I’d urge you to ask yourself, is are you patient with yourself? Are you kind to yourself? Have you forgiven yourself? With the rest of the characteristic put in context to yourself and be honest with yourself….

We’d continue on the love series I’m going to give my own answers to those questions with different scenarios in my life; stay blessed 🙂